"Ruthlessly ambitious" Chris Huhne was so desperate for power he bullied his former wife Vicky Pryce into taking speeding points for him, using "coercion, control and domination", her lawyer has told a jury.

Summing up the defence case at Pryce's trial for perverting the course of justice, Julian Knowles QC said she was "not superwoman, not superhuman", but had "all the human emotions and frailties that we all have".

Pryce, a senior economist, admits taking speeding points in 2003 on behalf of Huhne, her then husband, but has pleaded not guilty on the grounds of marital coercion. Huhne, the former energy minister, pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice on 4 February and is awaiting sentencing. He has resigned his parliamentary seat of Eastleigh.

Addressing the jury of eight women and four men, Knowles described the disgraced politician, who had previously worked in the City and as a financial journalist, as "a man who didn't let anything stand in the way of his career".

"He wanted to do more in his career than just write dry business articles two-thirds [of the way through] the paper that only those with real interest wanted to read. He wanted more from his career. He wanted power.

"Again I remind you, ruthlessly ambitious Mr Huhne wanted power."

Over the course of their 26-year marriage, Knowles said, Huhne, 58, had engaged in a pattern of control over his former wife, whom he left in 2010 for a PR adviser, Carina Trimingham.

"Bullying is a convenient label to attach to what Mr Huhne did," said the QC. "Bullies don't just use their fists – they don't need to. Clever people like Mr Huhne have other ways of dominating people and it was the other ways that he utilised."

It is Pryce's case that when she signed a form in 2003 saying she had been driving when Huhne's BMW was caught speeding on the M11, she did so after being coerced by the politician.

Summing up the prosecution case on Tuesday, Andrew Edis QC told the jury that Pryce, 60, who was formerly one of the government's most senior economists, had told "barefaced lies … to try to manipulate you, designed to give a false impression about her".

But Knowles said that, in contrast, Pryce was a woman of integrity, but that "everyone has a breaking point, everyone runs out of gas, everyone makes mistakes, has moments of weakness, can be worn down.

"It doesn't matter who you are, where you are from, what you do, how many languages you speak. Every single one of us, given the right combination of circumstances, feel they have no option but to do something they don't want to do even though they know it's not the right thing to do.

He said: "To portray Vicky Pryce as some bloodless, emotionless career woman who never put a foot wrong, who never did things that she didn't want to do, is just so far wide of the mark that it ought to be dismissed out of hand."

It was "a story with no winners", said Knowles, adding that the saddest piece of evidence the jury had heard about Pryce and Huhne was that she still loved him, she loved him all along.

The judge, Mr Justice Sweeney, said it was for the prosecution to prove Pryce's guilt, not for the defence to prove her innocence.

In his legal directions, he told the jury of eight women and four men , they were required to give "cool, calm, careful and dispassionate consideration of the evidence, together with the courage to return a true verdict, whatever the consequences may be".

Of Pryce's defence of marital coercion, he said the law recognises that "a wife is morally blameless if she committed an offence only because her husband was present and coerced her.

"That is, put pressure on her to commit the offence in such a way that as a result her will was overborne, in the sense that she was impelled to commit the offence because she truly believed that she had no real choice but to do so."

Her will would not have been overborne if "she was persuaded by the fact of argument to choose, albeit reluctantly, to commit the offence rather than take another course.

"Or if she was persuaded, albeit reluctantly, to commit the offence out of love for or loyalty to her husband or family or to avoid inconvenience, whether to herself or others".

The case was adjourned until Thursday when he will continue his summing up.